Tallahassee tests bear-resistant trash cans

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Roughly 200 bear-resistant trash cans will be distributed in parts of Florida's Big Bend where bears are known to look for food.

Leon County and the city of Tallahassee are making changes to recycling and trash services. Those changes include a pilot program testing trash cans that bears can't open.

At a demonstration Friday at the Tallahassee Museum, two black bears failed to pry the lid off one of the cans, which had been smeared with jelly.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologist Sarah Barrett tells the Tallahassee Democrat that many bears from the Apalachicola National Forest use Tallahassee as a bridge to forests farther east.

An estimated 700 bears live in the national forest.

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